Yes, this picture is exactly what it looks like.

The Judd Apatow movie machine rolls on with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a comedy about heartbreak and healing. In case you haven’t heard, Apatow’s credits as writer, director and/or producer include Superbad, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. A typical Apatow movie involves a fair amount of raunchy dialogue and one or more schlubby-looking guys who somehow manage to get much more attractive women to fall for them.

In this case, the schlubby guy in question is Peter (Jason Segal), a composer for a cop show who’s dating the show’s star, Sarah Marshall (Kristin Bell). At least he’s dating her for the first five minutes of the movie. Then she shows up and dumps him, leaving him naked and sobbing on the couch. In an attempt to heal his broken heart, Peter takes a vacation to Hawaii, ending up at the same resort where Sarah is staying with her new boyfriend, British pop star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Rachel (Mila Kunis), a pretty hotel employee, is Peter’s potential new love interest, if he can only forget Sarah.

"No, I was a freak. Those other guys were geeks. Why do I have to keep explaining this?"

Okay, I haven’t actually reviewed any of the Apatow canon on this site so I should tell you that I really liked Virgin but thought Knocked Up and Superbad were only so-so. Though I give them all credit for some very funny moments and well-drawn characters (at least the guys, but we’ll get to that in a moment), I’ve found them to be uneven and overlong. And while they usually draw raves for depicting how guys relate to each other, the women in the movies have all been gorgeous, one-dimensional cutouts. I’ve got nothing against geeky guys, but just once I’d like to see one fall for the geeky girl rather than the beauty queen.

But back to this movie. It does some things better and some things worth than those movies. Better: the female characters, particularly Rachel, are better developed, and since we see more of them we can understand why Peter would be attracted to each of them and vice versa. Kunis is sweet and spunky as Rachel and Bell displays some good comic chops as Sarah.

"So I'm just going to steal the movie now and take it over there and, well, that's all really. Cheers."

Worse: The humor was all over the map, and not always on the funny side of town. There were some hilarious scenes with Jack McBrayer as a newlywed befuddled by the mechanics of sex, and funny exchanges between Peter and his brother (Bill Hader). And Brand, hilarious and oddly likeable as Aldous, livens up every scene with his benevolent arrogance. But most of the other minor characters fell flat and random diversions like pig slaughter and Peter’s fear of STDs aren’t nearly as funny as they sound.

Overall, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is probably about 65 percent as funny as a good comedy should be. Is that enough for you? I expect that depends on what other options you have for an evening’s entertainment. As for me, I prefer a better return on investment.

Gorilla Pants rating: 2 out of 4 bananas